Fox forks gain shiny coats

“Exclusive to FOX Racing Shox’s mountain bike products, the gold-colored Kashima Coat developed by the Miyaki Company of Japan offers superior durability, hardness, and less friction.”

And so says the press release. But what does it mean? Well, Fox is going to be coating its fork stanchions with a new, tough but slippery coating. The advantages of this will be to cut stiction and to protect the stanchion surface from wear. Gee Atherton and other Fox sponsored riders have been using them for a while and seem to like them.

Shiny, shiny!

Back to the press release:

“The Kashima Coat technology has been used for years across the motorcycle and automotive industries in suspension components and clutch and valve train assemblies because of its low-friction and ultra-wear resistance properties.

In the revolutionary Kashima Coat process, lubricating molybdenum disulfide is deposited, via electrical induction, into the billions of micropores on the surface of hard-anodized aluminum. With its debut on the international mountain bike racing circuit, the distinctive gold colored, Kashima coated stanchions maintain better lubrication characteristics, and the lightweight aluminum components treated with Kashima Coat attain a level of hardness and abrasion resistance four times tougher than standard hard-anodized aluminum.

Race Tested — Numerous Wins Tell the Tale Throughout the 2009 mountain bike racing season, FOX Racing Shox utilized select sponsored athletes to test and race on suspension treated with Kashima Coating. “Before we started using Kashima Coat, we’d been testing and racing on electroless nickel coated upper tubes during the past two seasons,” explained FOX Racing Shox Mountain Bike Race Manager, Mark Fitzsimmons. “Although the friction properties were decent, the nickel’s durability was not. The Kashima parts we raced on maintained the low friction requirements we were after and exhibited excellent durability — a very rare combination to find at the World Cup level with its wet and muddy conditions.”

Beyond the obvious benefit of added durability, the significant decrease in friction proved to provide a tangible increase in suspension performance. Athletes who tested and raced with Kashima coated FOX Racing Shox suspension reported an improved overall consistency and feel with Kashima Coat.

“When you are racing on the World Cup level, a huge percentage of races can be won or lost in the preparation of the bike — the seemingly small details that take the bike from good to excellent,” said 2008 Downhill World Champion, Gee Atherton. “The Kashima coating made the forks so much more reactive to the small hits that I would normally feel on rough terrain. When the forks were skittering over tiny bumps they could soak up the impact much more quickly, without giving me so much feedback through the bars. That’s a huge advantage on long courses.”

FOX Racing Shox sponsored athletes collected quite a few victories aboard Kashima Coat treated suspension, including both men’s and women’s British National Downhill Championships, four World Cup wins, and a World Championship victory with Yeti/Fox rider Jared Graves in 4X. The combination of incredibly favorable tangible data and the desire by its world-class riders to be equipped with Kashima coated suspension has led FOX Racing Shox to an exclusive partnership with Miyaki for Kashima Coat.

“We’re a race-driven company,” said FOX Racing Shox Executive VP, Mario Galasso. “We are constantly looking for performance advantages that may lead to race victories. Kashima Coat is, without a doubt, one of those advantages. Since we also pride ourselves on racing exactly what we sell, we’re proud to offer this new performance advantage to our customers, through Kashima Coat.”

Would you let yourslf be “forked” by fox again? Not me sir. After replacing the uppers THREE times in 18 months due to wear I woud consider having them replaced for free, but would then flog them on to some unsupsecting muppet that believe the hype from fox. Rockshox replacements still going strong with, strangley, NO WEAR!!!!!!!

Trying to do a bit of research in to Fox Fork Failures: Maybe we can get a bit of consumer power going. PLease coud you email me peternadin@btinternet.com with : what model, year, date of purchase, OEM or seperate purchase, problem, and fox’s reponse. If you know of anyone else with similar issues, please pass this on.

Follow the maintenance instructions, and you won’t have a problem. It takes 15 minutes. I have 3 pairs of fox currently and have not had problems. Serviced a mates 36 TALAS and his lowers were runined – the difference? He never serviced them. Rockshox not having problems? Not in my experience – Lyrik 2 Step Air anyone? Also had a Revelation blighted by travel loss problems and stanchion wear. Go to MTBR, and I think you’ll find plenty of folk complaining about reliability issues with the other big brand.

i have 2004 fox floats. they’ve been serviced once and the bike shop dude say there was barely any wear. i guess they saw the problem with such a reliable product back then and decided introduce some ridiculously low tolerance to use and ergo to sell more. right? 😉

The Fox bulls**t about it being a race product therefore needs looking after more really annoys me. The is no fork more “race” than the Spesh fork on my Epic, but that only requires a minor service every 50 hours. Same with my Magura Durins – also lighter than the equivalent Fox.

The Fox bulls**t about it being a race product therefore needs looking after more really annoys me. There is no fork more “race” than the Spesh fork on my Epic, but that only requires a minor service every 50 hours. Same with my Magura Durins – also lighter than the equivalent Fox.

Here at the office we’ve had load of Fox forks on test (longterm and short term) and none of us have experienced excessive wear or the problems some of you are describing. If we had we’d have said so. That doesn’t mean that it’s not true and that some people have worn stanchions etc. But I would remind people that on a site with 270000+ unique users there’s a few people here complaining about wear- That doesn’t make a conspiracy against consumers or any other such nonsense- Drillski ” research” in to this will mean that out of the tens of thousands of forks sold he will be able to correlate a blackhole in to nothingness related to nothing based on nothing.

It would appear most peoples forks are working quite happily,judging by the lack of complaints about them, not that they wear excessively.

Final note – If you believe so much that it’s all hype and the general Cynicism that you being flogged stuff for the sake of it, how come were all riding in general much better nicer bike than we did 15 years ago? It’s because the bikes we ride have kept improving…

Admanmatt – how come were all riding in general much better nicer bike than we did 15 years ago? It’s because the bikes we ride have kept improving…

Yes there have been some big improvements (A-head stems and disc brakes do it for me) but I don’t remember being suicidal in the mid nineties because my Kona Fire Mountain or Orange Clockwork were so apallingly rubbish (they weren’t and the Clockwork remains the most inspirational bike I’ve ever ridden). I do remember enjoying every ride and making some very good friends though. The bikes may be technically better but the riding’s what you make of it. As a comparison I don’t believe Formula 1 motor racing was any less exciting for drivers or spectators back when the cars had only half the power they have now. It’s arguable that it was more exciting then but there’s been plenty written elsewhere about rampant consumerism and modern bikes dumbing down the trails.

I have used fox forks and shocks for the past five years. the only problem I had was when I cracked the aircan on an rp23 on landing a 6ft drop to flat on a bike that just wasn’t built for it.

What I can’t understand is why all these manufacturers bang on about stiction, if they are so bothered by it why not just use the the most slippery substance known to man, that’s so hard wearing its in your frying that you can scrub clean with harsh chemicals and wire wool, and it last years; telfon. Are is teflon to slippery, or apparently not hard wearing enough?

stantion wear is more than likely because you don’t drop the lowers, empty the water and crud out and replace the oil, every couple of weeks. It really is a 10 minute job. Blame the seals\anodising\sunspots if you like, but YOU can avoid it by doing the above. But of course you wouldn’t want to get your hands dirty after spending half a grand on some forks would you?